There comes a time when a boy becomes a man. It often does not occur in a bedroom, or in a van, or any special place. A boy becomes a man when tossed into the elements, in the world, in a commonplace, in an extraordinary situation, all alone. For a fifteen-year-old teenager, in high school, becoming a man meant riding big waves, radically, with commitment, for the entire world to see. For Wracks, his time comes now.
“Let’s go down to Diego, “says Getty
“The surf is flat, I checked it myself,” says Cool
“There might be something coming in at staircase,” says Getty
“Do you have smokes and brew,” asks Cool.
“We have smokes and brew, “promises Getty, “I need company.”
“I have gas money,” says Wracks, “I’m in.”
“Get your gear and throw it in back,” orders Getty.
Kool has a green Meth model shaped like a teardrop, and a green robe and a duffel bag filled with goodies, and he tosses them all in the back hatchback of the yellow and white Volkswagen van. Wraks has a purple and red second hand NatPro purchased for a song from Bee aye the seventh member of the room. Getty has a red pintail BK potato chip. Wracks has drilled out the glassed-in fin on his purple monster and installed a neon large orange fin of his own design. The result yields a blatant diamond tail billboard meant to handle large surf. He delicately places his board in the back of the van along with his blue druid robe and a sack of food liberated from his parent’s house. The ride down to Diego bodes long and boring and Wracks falls asleep, like always on the bed in the back of the van as the tuned exhaust blare a blatant note of existence.
Kool drinks a Budweiser sixteen-ounce in a huge gulp, finds someone to throw the can at, and heaves the crumpled mass at them on the freeway. The can bounces off the windshield of a sedan, the sedan swerves, and an angry driver displays the finger to Kool. Kool displays the finger back and grabs a cigarette, then lights the Marlboro with a Bic butane lighter, smiles, and draws a huge puff from the reefer. The who blares from a tape deck suspended from the metal dashboard of the van and time passes. Smoke drifts in eddies out the side exit windows, and the town of little happenings comes into view. Looking down at the cliff, the three survey the beach break with rocky reefs interspersed amongst the long expanse of sand. The waves break at two to three feet with a light wind blowing the soup into a delicate froth of soup.
“Let’s go to seven-eleven.” Says Getty “ I am hungry.”
“Yeah, dah.” Screams cool, “Hamburger, candy, and a huge Slurpee to go for me.”
The yellow-white van growls into town and the first 7-11 looms in front of it. Getty pulls in, he and Kool exit the car and go inside the store. They both return with brown bags and large Slurpees in blue and red cherry. Wracks eats his bread, a packet of Kraft cheese bits and savors a can of red sugared coca cola.
“We are going to Windiness, “ smiles HP
“The cashier inside the 7-11 says that a hard south swell currently focuses on Windiness and the surf should be larger there. “
“I have never been to Windiness,” says Wracks
“The break appears to be a deep-water reef close to shore and the waves break right and left depending on the season and the swell direction.” “It is only fifteen minutes more, over the bridge, at the entrance to Diego Bay. A colony of small houses is situated there and the person told me where we could park safely.”
Over the grey steel bridge and into the southern part of the niche, before Crown beach go the three surf riders with hopes, dreams, and ambition. In ambition comes excellence and today excellence tests under the envelope of big. Windiness beach looks like a short beach strewn with rocks, typical of southern California beaches. Windiness sets straight like a flat beach break except here, south of The Niche, the bottom of the ocean a hundred yards out spans deeper than one thousand feet. For this reason, ocean swells attract to the reef and rear up suddenly out of the deep water and break hard with much mass and water coming over with the breaking wave. Wracks looks out the side window of the van and Windiness, today breaks at over twenty-five feet in height. A tall man in a white helmet and long surfboard enters a huge swell and turns his huge board and banks toward shore on the huge wall of water. The wave at Windiness rears up as a huge triangular peak and breaks in both directions. At this point in time, the lefts break better. A slight offshore wind makes the surface conditions epic in nature and the waves tumble to completion with spray dancing off the top of the breaking waves.
“I think the waves are too large for me,” whimpers Wracks
“We are parking, and you are going out,” screams Getty. “The conditions are epic and half of Diego watches on the beach. If you start to drown, they will call a helicopter.”
“Twisted,” screams Kool and the crowd on the beach turn their heads for a second and look at him. Kool tears his clothes off like a man possessed and stark-naked pulls on his wetsuit like a hotdog stuffing machine. Today Windiness breaks like big Pipe and Kool rides goofy foot. Windansea and 18th Street are the only breaks in southern California that fire on a hard south-southeast swell. Both HP and Kool prepare with amazing speed and run toward the entry spot on the beach. They both run to the water and cast themselves out like torpedoes steaming out of a submarine. Wracks remain stolid and slowly waxes his board and counts the set waves. The sets are four in number with the second wave the largest and the sets periodically appear at twenty-minute intervals. Wracks decides to paddle out. At windiness, a channel to the right of the reef sucks waters out in a huge riptide when the waves break large, and wracks enters the entry zone and the rip aids the paddle out into deep water and big waves. Out in the middle of the ocean, an extraordinarily large set hits the reef and Wracks gets caught inside the area where the wave breaks and loses his surfboard, comes up after the set and finds him in the middle of nowhere in twenty-foot-plus waves. He sees the older man in a helmet and asks him for help. The older man says,
“Son, in big surf, you have to swim in. If a rip pulls you out the only way in is to body surf the waves in.” Wraks again asks him to help him in. The man in the helmet repeats his command. “Body surf the waves in,” “It is the only way. “
In large surf the ocean heaves in turbulence and without a wetsuit, most people soon drown. Wracks starts to backstroke his way into the beach. The riptide hinders his exit. A huge set hits the reef. Wracks turns into freestyle stroke and scratches hard to enter the twenty-foot-high wave. The wave picks him up and Wracks hydroplanes down the face of the wave using his hands like fins At the bottom of the wave, Wracks turns and points toward the open area and the wave overtakes him and pushes downward, deeply and the turbulence spins him around like an old rag doll. When deep under water all watermen open up their eyes. Watermen open up their eyes to see where the bubbles go. Where the bubbles move signals the direction up. Wracks swim in the direction of the bubbles, break the surface, and gulps down a huge amount of air. A second wall of white water hits his body and Wracks goes underneath again. Watching the bubbles, he swims upward and breaks the surface again. The set of waves concludes Wracks has been pushed inside towards the beach, and exit from the breakers seems possible. Within ten minutes, the wrack scramble up on the beach and looks for his board. Some kind observer rescues his board from the rocks and sets the purple explosion on a safe stretch of beach. Wracks sits on the beach and looks again at the breaking waves.
“It wasn’t so bad,” he thinks, I am going back out.”
Wracks grabs the reins of his horse, gets back on and rides again. Luckily, no huge clean-up sets made him swim in again. Both Getty and Cool surf as the time of their lives on the left breaking waves, just like Pipeline. Wracks surfs the rights which break slower and mushier but still huge in size. Wracks’ gets three huge set waves presently and successfully performs two rollercoaster reentries in double overhead plus surf. The wrack notes that the bottom turns feel good with the large custom fin. By three o’clock PM. HP waves from the beach and heads up to the car at a parking place that mysteriously appears out of nowhere for the three at this exclusive and fabulous colony community. The three exhausted wave riders strip their wetsuits and dress slowly. Then the three sit inside the car and devour whatever remains of food in the car at hand.
“That was epic,” says Getty “Awesome radical lefts.”
“Tubular,” asserts Kool as he smiles largely and eats a two-foot-long beef stick.
“I got two really good ones,” says Wracks “I can’t go left yet.”
“I have to work tonight, “ says Getty, “lets go.”
The white and yellow van roars to life as the megaphone exhaust shakes and belches mist out of the header. The van rolls over the bridge, gets on interstate five and the three head for home. HP smokes cigarettes, drinks a Coca-Cola and drives. As usual, Wracks falls asleep. Kool Chain smokes and drinks a Budweiser red sixteen-ounce beer. Wracks wakes up at the refinery, and again at dismal canyon road, past the high school. At the corner of Mellow man’s lane, Bacon Way and Saint Inez sits the Wracks’ house, with grandma, the dog, and a little bit of home. Wracks and Cool pull their gear out of the van and Cool takes his board and duffel and disappears down the street towards Marco’s way. Wracks rinse off his gear with cold water and enters his house. The little dog wakes up, yelps, and seems to smile. No one resides within except for Grandma who sits in her room and watches Lawrence Welk reruns. She waves at wracks and smiles.
“I will make dinner in fifteen minutes,” says Wracks
Wracks finds some chicken with wine left over in the refrigerator and puts the mass into the microwave oven. The oven hums, the dog runs in his sleep on the cushion, the house darkens as light leaves the remains of the day, and night in tranquil hills begins. Here nothing becomes of what it seems.
Wracks never rode the waves at windiness ever again. The drive remains too long, especially for a person who does not own a car. The secret of windiness remains. When a huge storm turns off the coast of Antarctica, in the west, extreme south swells focus on south-facing beaches on a north stretch of land. A huge offshore canyon at windiness captures extreme south swells and Windiness can be twenty feet when everywhere else looks as flat as a lake. Everywhere of course, except Jalama and the extremely well-kept green custom houses last another day in a time when darkness and immensity threaten the world and the intrinsic fabric of mankind. If a wave rider surfs windiness, watch out for great white sharks as Simmons disappeared mysteriously there one day in big surf in a deep fog.